BIOGRAPHY OF STIFFEN HAWKING

From his birth through teenage Professor Stephen William Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 in Oxford, England, which is exactly 300 years after the death of Galileo. From a very early age Hawking showed the qualities of a scientist, he was always inquisitive. He liked to build models to see how things worked. Hawking went to the High School for Girls (yes, the school was supposed to be for girls) at St. Albans at the age of 8. Later, he switched to St. Albans School by passing the eleven-plus examination. Hawking was a keen child, but he was not the brightest in his competitive A stream class. Some of his classmates did not believe he could do well, though they gave him the nickname of Einstein. College Life Hawking's father who was a doctor, wanted him to study medicine at Oxford. However, he was more interested in Mathematics. It turned out that he studied Physics, as the University College did not provide degree studies in Mathematics. Hawking was awarded a first class honors degree in Natural Science after 3 years of studies, without doing much work, as he described in his auto-biography. At the age of 20, Hawking went on to do research in Cosmology at Cambridge. This was also about the time when he was diagnosed with the incurable disease ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis). He slowly lost control of his muscles and

was told would die within a few years. At first, Hawking was shocked and upset. He could not find a reason for living before he met his wife Jane Wilde. Later the progress of his illness slowed down, and he finished his Ph.D. After gaining his Ph.D. Hawking has been a Researcher Fellow and later on a Professorial Fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He left the Institute of Astronomy in 1973, and took the post of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics since 1979. Hawking's studies mainly concern with the basic laws that govern the universe. From 1965 to 1970, Hawking showed with Roger Penrose of Birkbeck College, London that there would be a Big Bang singularity by considering Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Between 1970 and 1974, Hawking concentrated his studies on black holes. He combined Quantum Mechanics with General Relativity into the theory of Hawking Radiation in 1974. In 1983 Hawking and Jim Hurtle of the University of California at Santa Barbara suggested that there is no edge for space and time though they are finite in extent. This implies that the laws of science would be able to determine how the universe begun! Unfortunately in 1985, Hawking caught pneumonia and had a tracheotomy operation, which removed his voice. He had some difficult time to communicate with others. This situation was not relieved until he had a small portable computer and a speech synthesizer fitted to his wheelchair by David Mason of Cambridge. But another problem arose as the synthesizer gave this English physicist an American accent. More recent events Overcoming the obstacle of his illness, Professor Hawking has great contribution in Physics and has received many awards, medals and prizes worldwide. So far he

has been awarded 12 honorary degrees. He received his Commander of the British Empire (CBE) title in 1982 and the Companion of Honor (CH) in 1989. He is a Fellow of the US National Academy of Sciences. Now he is continuing his research on theoretical Physics and giving public lectures around the world. What's Hawking radiation? How does it connect with black holes - places of mysteries in our universe? We hope you can find out the answers after surfing around our site. To facilitate your navigation, a site map is provided here. Enjoy your visit! Introduction is sub-divided into 2 parts: Black holes - An introduction to black holes. "The Hole Man" - A summary of a science fiction story, which later is used as a framework of our example calculations. The Core contains the major topics of our site: Event horizon - We'll explain here an important measurement of black holes. Virtual particles - the origin of Hawking radiation. Hawking radiation- Discussing Hawking radiation in details. Temperature - Temperature of a black hole and related calculations. Luminosity - Luminosity of a black hole and related calculations. Life time - Black hole evporation. Example calculations: A page with convenient links to all the example calculations. Background contains pre-requisite knowledge before you can visit The Core. Gravitation - Newton's law of universal gravitation. Potential energy - Introduction to gravitational potential energy. Quantum - The Planck's equation. Black body radiation - Explain what black body radiation is. Einstein's Formula - A passage on the famous mass-energy equivalence relation.

All formulas is a formula sheet. Interactive contains: Applet - an interactive applet on gravitaion. Message board - a place for discussion. Biography is a brief passage on the founder of Hawking radiation - S.W. Hawking. Early life Stephen William Hawking was born on January 8, 1942, in Oxford, England. His father, a well-known researcher in tropical medicine, urged his son to seek a career in medicine, but Stephen found biology and medicine were not exact enough. Therefore, he turned to the study of mathematics and physics. Hawking was not an outstanding student at St. Alban's School, nor later at Oxford University, which he entered in 1959. He was a social young man who did little schoolwork because he was able to grasp the essentials of a mathematics or physics problem quickly. At home he reports, "I would take things apart to see how they worked, but they didn't often go back together." His early school years were marked by unhappiness at school, with his peers and on the playing field. While at Oxford he became increasingly interested in physics (study of matter and energy), eventually graduating with a first class honors in physics (1962). He immediately began postgraduate studies at Cambridge University. Graduate school The onset of Hawking's graduate education at Cambridge marked a turning point in his life. It was then that he embarked upon the formal study of cosmology, which focused his study. And it was then that he was first stricken with Lou Gehrig's disease, a weakening disease of the nervous and muscular system that eventually led to his total confinement in a wheelchair. At Cambridge his talents were recognized, and he was encouraged to carry on his studies despite his growing

physical disabilities. His marriage in 1965 was an important step in his emotional life. Marriage gave him, he recalled, the determination to live and make professional progress in the world of science. Hawking received his doctorate degree in 1966. He then began his lifelong research and teaching association with Cambridge University. Theory of singularity Hawking made his first major contribution to science with his idea of singularity, a work that grew out of his collaboration (working relationship) with Roger Penrose. A singularity is a place in either space or time at which some quantity becomes infinite (without an end). Such a place is found in a black hole, the final stage of a collapsed star, where the gravitational field has infinite strength. Penrose proved that a singularity could exist in the space-time of a real universe. Drawing upon the work of both Penrose and Albert Einstein (18791955), Hawking demonstrated that our universe had its origins in a singularity. In the beginning all of the matter in the universe was concentrated in a single point, making a very small but tremendously dense body. Ten to twenty billion years ago that body exploded in a big bang that initiated time and the universe. Hawking was able to produce current astrophysical (having to do with the study of stars and the events that occur around them) research to support the big bang theory of the origin of the universe and oppose the competing steady-state theory. Hawking's research led him to study the characteristics of the best-known singularity: the black hole. A black hole's edges, called the event horizon, can be detected. Hawking proved that the surface area (measurement of the surface) of the event horizon could only increase, not decrease, and that when two black holes merged the surface area of the new hole was larger than the sum of the two original.

Hawking's continuing examination of the nature of black holes led to two important discoveries. The first, that black holes can give off heat, opposed the claim that nothing could escape from a black hole. The second concerned the size of black holes. As originally conceived, black holes were immense in size because they were the end result of the collapse of gigantic stars. Hawking suggested the existence of millions of mini-black holes formed by the force of the original big bang explosion.

Stephen Hawking. Reproduced by permission of AP/Wide World Photos . Unified field theory In the 1980s Hawking answered one of Einstein's unanswered theories, the famous unified field theory. A complete unified theory includes the four main interactions known to modern physics. The unified theory explains the conditions that were present at the beginning of the universe as well as the features of the physical laws

of nature. When humans develop the unified field theory, said Hawking, they will "know the mind of God." Publications As Hawking's physical condition grew worse his intellectual achievements increased. He wrote down his ideas in A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes. It sold over a million copies and was listed as the best-selling nonfiction book for over a year. In 1993 Hawking wrote Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays, which, in addition to his scientific thoughts, contains chapters about Hawking's personal life. He coauthored a book in 1996 with Sir Roger Penrose titled The Nature of Space and Time. Issues discussed in this book include whether the universe has boundaries and if it will continue to expand forever. Hawking says yes to the first question and no to the second, while Penrose argues the opposite. Hawking joined Penrose again the following year in the creation of another book, The Large, the Small, and the Human Mind (1997). In 2002 he was likewise celebrating the publication of The Universe in a Nutshell. Despite decreasing health, Hawking traveled on the traditional book release circuit. People with disabilities look to him as a hero. Honors and commitments Hawking's work in modern cosmology and in theoretical astronomy and physics is widely recognized. He became a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1974 and five years later was named to a professorial chair at Cambridge University that was once held by Sir Isaac Newton (16421727). Beyond these honors he has earned a host of honorary degrees, awards, prizes, and lectureships from the major universities and scientific societies of Europe and America. By the end of the twentieth century Stephen Hawking had become one of the best-known scientists

in the world. His popularity includes endorsing a wireless Internet connection and speaking to wheelchair-bound youth. He also had a special appearance on the television series Star Trek. Though very private, it is generally known that Stephen's first marriage ended in 1991. He has three children from that marriage. When asked about his objectives, Hawking told Zygon in a 1995 interview, "My goal is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all." For More Information Ferguson, Kitty. Stephen Hawking: A Quest for a Theory of the Universe. New York: F. Watts, 1991. Henderson, Harry. Stephen Hawking. San Diego, CA: Lucent Books, 1995. McDaniel, Melissa. Stephen Hawking: Revolutionary Physicist. New York: Chelsea House, 1994. White, Michael, and John Gribbin. Stephen Hawking: A Life in Science. New York: Viking, 1992.

Refference Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays, Copyright (c) 1993 Stephen Hawking

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